My kids aren’t always happy with me about this decision, but well, I wasn’t put here to be their best buddy or to get the “Most Fun Mom of the Year Award” (though I admit that wouldn’t be a bad thing). My job is to help them to live a vibrant, healthy life, and part of that is encouraging them to have a healthy diet.

Have you seen the plethora of negative information coming out about high fructose corn syrup and sugar alone? There has been mercury detected in high-fructose corn syrup due to the means of processing, and sugar is now being linked to all sorts of health issues.

I must admit, that in recent days, there are more and more healthy alternatives on the market that I love. We recently tested some delicious Bai drinks at Costco and we LOVE Zevia soda. However, they really can put a dent in your budget, so they are just for very occasional purchases in our household. We’ve really only bought the Bais once.

• Note that the lemon juice content of this sugar-free lemonade is variable. When I first published this recipe, I used only 1/4 cup. Since then, I realize that I like my lemonade a lot stronger and I will use up to 1/2 cup or more. I kept forgetting to update the post but a few readers have commented with the same thoughts so it’s updated now :).

• Please us only real (truly real) lemon juice. That so-called “lemon juice” that is made under the name “ReaLemon®” and similar knockoffs just don’t do it.Why? Well, yuck taste and yuck ingredients. Have you seen that label? Do you really want to be eating sodium benzoate, sodium metabisulfite, sodium sulfite if you don’t have to? Me neither.Besides, sodium benzoate has been implicated in issues related to it being combined with citric acid and creating benzene, so be very careful with this ingredient in both food and personal care products.

• *Pure stevia is incredibly sweet. 1 scoop = 1/32 tsp and either one or two scoops will sweeten an 8 oz drink. It is really important which stevia you choose. Some are just plain icky. Our family’s current favorite is NuNaturals as it is one of the only brands that uses only water to extract the stevia from the plant. But KAL is really nice as well. I am going to be trying another brand that was recommended to me soon. I’ll keep you updated! See How to Use Stevia. You may substitute approximately 1/2 cup of a granulated or liquid sweetener to taste.

RESPONSE TO CYNDI… Making sure children have nutritious food is stealing their childhood??? parents “controlling” their children is wrong???? not controlling children & letting them do whatever they want is what should be done???? that is why their are so many out of control kids, that turn into out of control adults!!!! for the 1st time ever, children have a shorter life expectancy then their parents!! you don’t see something wrong with that??? you are what is wrong with the world today!!!!!

The whole attitude of it’s wrong giving children nutritious food .. that they should be given things that have no nutritional value AND in fact have been shown to be detrimental to health is what is IDIOTIC!!!! so they should just have alcohol, cigarettes, heroin, cocaine & whatever other idiotic thing you think they should have is ok???? those things ALL used to be promoted as being healthy for young & old alike… not letting children have them would in your eyes be depriving them of childhood???????????? After all, not letting them have those things in just “controlling them” to use your words!!! you are such an IDIOT for not giving kids the nutrition they NEED & REQUIRE to grow & flourish!!!! & instead support detrimental to their health things!!!

Hi, i know this is most likely a stupid question, but i have a 4oz. bottle of NuNaturals NuStevia white stevia powder i bought at a health food store. Im a newbee….So no where on the bottle does it say extract, so have i messed up and bought the wrong thing ? And after doing all this reading i looked on the back and the first thing i saw was Maltodextrin~~~~oops here next to the Maltodextrin it says, stevia extract but as i read on it says the Maltodextrin is to help with the measuring … I am a bit slow and sort of have a little more of a hard time understanding things, would you please try and help me with this before i go buy more ? I am so trying to undo a lot of damage done to me by my mom filling me with junk foods day in and day out as a child causing me to be extreme obese when i was small…. (and still battle every day of my life) So could you post a picture or something showing just exactly what you buy ? I just cant Thank You enough . I am so glad i have found you, God Bless and keep up the awesome work you do <3

I was raised on sweet tea, which gave me a sweet tooth to this day that is hard to control. Later I tried to switch to soda pop which had High Fructose Corn syrup sweeteners. Now I am severely insulin resistant & pre-diabetic but while keeping my A1C down between 5.8 and 6.2, I still have advancing symptoms of Diabetes, which I have been unable to stop and reverse. I am extremely ill, but still functioning. I have studied health to try to reverse it for 11 years and the only thing left to me are extremes – long fasts and liver flushes to try to help my health which I am about to try to do soon. I sure wish my parents would have made healthier choices for themselves and us kids – my parents died horrible deaths and my brother who still uses sugar is so sick that he will probably die soon, within the year, and his death will be horrible too, because he is going through really bad things now. Gastroparesis (paralyzing muscles in the stomach which doesn’t allow digestion and seems to go all the way down through to his bladder too – loss of bladder function) along with many other things. I don’t want to go through those horrible things! I am trying to figure it all out and I am unable to drink anything except juiced vegetables, water and water with lemon squeezed in it – any sweetener causes me trouble. And generally, I am often dehydrated because of it. Please don’t bad-mouth a mom who is trying to help keep her child healthy! It may save their life when they are older.

All materials are found on open spaces of a network the Internet as freely extended and laid out exclusively in the fact-finding purposes. If you are what lawful legal owner or a product and against its placing on the given site, inform us and we will immediately remove the given material. The administration of a site does not bear responsibility for actions of the visitors breaking copyrights. abuzesite@bigmir.net